


Light Up the Path

by chucks_prophet



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Reality, But so is Dean, Cute, First Kiss, Fluff, Kansas, Light Angst, M/M, New Year's Day, New Year's Eve, New Years, Poetic, Stargazing, That's Right Folks Old School Angel Powers, Tooth-Rotting Fluff, Warping Reality, cas is a sap
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-27
Updated: 2017-12-27
Packaged: 2019-02-22 10:16:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,073
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13164822
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chucks_prophet/pseuds/chucks_prophet
Summary: A whole sky ahead of them, and yet they find life here, in each other’s eyes. Cas has always considered himself a black hole in a vast, far more deserving galaxy: Always sucking people into his messed up world. Hell, he’s sucked Dean in more times than he’s wanted to; torn him apart in ways unimaginable.Maybe that’s why Dean’s leaning into him, and maybe that’s why Cas is parting his mouth. Maybe this is how it’s meant to be: Two natural disasters colliding to the cadence of the stars.





	Light Up the Path

**Author's Note:**

> Named after, you guessed it, a line from "A Sky Full of Stars" by Coldplay. I just imagine the instrumental to this song blaring when and if Dean and Cas kiss on the show - if not to, obviously, a Zeppelin track.
> 
> Hopefully my facts are right about the lunar eclipse - I tried pulling the article back up that I found the info from, but since this isn't a term paper, I'll leave it to your guy's imaginations.

_I don't care, go on and tear me apart_  
I don't care if you do ooh ooh  
'Cause in a sky, 'cause in a sky full of stars  
I think I saw you

Light Up the Path

It’s just after midnight on New Year’s Day. Everyone’s already tossing their noisemakers and making arrangements back home. Everyone already has their resolutions set and, thanks to the potency in their buttered rum, is filled to their yakking brims with hope and confidence they’ll achieve them. Some want to lose weight. Others want to take up a new hobby. Some people even want to dedicate time to their well-being, even as they stumble through the streets and puke in a stranger’s car.

As for Dean and Cas, they’d like to enjoy the moment as long as they can. Not by polluting the atmosphere with noise or tossing back rum—which, granted Dean’s character, is actually kind of surprising he’s _not_ choosing that route—but by enjoying the sounds of nature and getting high off spruce leaves and the open lake surrounding them.

Cas doesn’t know where the stretch of dirt they find themselves on takes them, but that’s not of their concern as they sit on the hood of the Impala, looking out over the canvas the earth’s so kindly painted them: Heavy strokes of neon green whip across the navy sky like loose contrails from giant jets, illuminating the bright blue stars behind them. To the east is a full moon burning red, highlighting the craters encompassing it.

Despite the six-degree Kansas weather that can make anyone shiver like Dean is, it ignites internal warmth that’s enough to keep it down to a minimum. "It's amazing,” Dean says, summing up Cas’s thoughts.

“Did you know this is a rare sight?” Cas says, casting a glance at Dean, whose eyes are loyal to the matching sky. “They call it the blood moon. It's only made an appearance a total of seven times in the last century. The last sighting was in 2015, and before that, 1982."

"So what prompted it to come back so early? Did someone jumpstart World War IIX on the moon?"

Cas grins at that. "It hasn't come to pass."

"So..." Dean starts, to his obvious confusion, "This _isn't_ the blood moon?"

"No, it very much is,” Cas responds. "This is the 2015 sighting.”

Dean’s mouth only grows wider and his eyebrows narrower. “I don’t follow.”

“Do you remember when Zachariah blasted you to that post-apocalyptic universe?”

"Wait… you're saying you… _created_ all this? So I'm the only one that can see it?"

"Precisely."

"And the backdrop?" Dean asks, still focused on the sky as if it’ll cease to exist if he’s not looking directly at it.

"Fictional,” Cas confirms, shifting his focus back there, too. “It’s from Churchill, Canada. You usually can’t see much aurora activity this early in the month up there. In fact, they only appear about four months out of the year.”

"Why?"

Cas knows he’s not asking about the lights. "Dean, do I have to write it in the stars?"

Cas bites his lip the second that spills from his mouth—something he, before adopting humanity as his new religion, wouldn’t have felt the need to do. When he fell, every emotion hit him at once like a jackhammer to dry, weathered gravel. He recognized emotions as the biggest practice in humanity—people feel the way the earth revolves around the sun: all the time, without relent and rarely without question—feelings of love and hope, of sadness and shame. What Cas has felt since pulling the Righteous Man from Hell has been a mixture of the four, but mostly the latter as the years stretched on and he realized what falling in love felt like.

“Consider this a late Christmas present,” he rejoins with instead.

"Mind manipulation. Sounds about right.” Dean turns to Cas with a huff of a laugh, only to hold up a hand. “No, Cas, I couldn’t—”

“But you will,” Cas states as he shrugs out of his trenchcoat.

Cas isn’t sure if the blush spreading through Dean’s cheeks is from Cas’s offering or the cold, so he doesn’t waste time draping the coat around his shoulders.

Then a ripple appears to the right of Dean’s lip. It’s the closest Cas has seen to a smile since they left that brothel, and Cas didn’t even have to throw a stone to encourage it.

And where one would expect a flood of words to rush out when he opens his mouth next, with instead both simplicity and sincerity—two traits Cas has a history of lacking in as both a human and an angel and admires in the man that converted him—Dean says, "Thanks, Cas. Seriously, it's beautiful."

A whole sky ahead of them, and yet they find life here, in each other’s eyes. Cas has always considered himself a black hole in a vast, far more deserving galaxy: Always sucking people into his messed up world. Hell, he’s sucked Dean in more times than he’s wanted to; torn him apart in ways unimaginable.

Maybe that’s why Dean’s leaning into him, and maybe that’s why Cas is parting his mouth. Maybe this is how it’s meant to be: Two natural disasters colliding to the cadence of the stars.

Cas closes his mouth the instant Dean’s lips are on his, like he’s done this a million times. Like the fate of the world—or _multiple_ worlds—doesn’t hang in the balance.

“It’s a shame,” he says, pulling back all too soon, and there’s that word again, shame. Cas swallows.

“What?”

“It’s a shame,” Dean repeats, still cradling his face, eyes consumed by two tinier black holes, “that I didn’t get to do this sooner.” He pauses. “I kinda wanted to do this _before_ the New Year passed.”

Cas’s resumes breathing, air lost from before pushing through the opening of his smiling lips. “As you wish.”

Confused, Dean looks around him, then at his watch. Cas already mourns his touch as he does so. “11:59.”

“You have one more minute,” Cas warns, tangling his hand in Dean’s hair. Dean full-on smiles this time, using Cas’s tie to pull him back down onto the Impala—this time, on top of him.

“Might as well make it count.”

_'Cause you're a sky, you're a sky full of stars_  
Such a heavenly view  
You're such a heavenly view

**Author's Note:**

> https://i.ytimg.com/vi/sLYaLMe0Dbc/maxresdefault.jpg - backdrop inspired by this. Nature is incredible.


End file.
